By Ben Schuff
benjamin-schuff@uiowa.edu
AMES — Royce White dunked the Cyclones back into Friday night’s match-up with the Hawkeyes. Then he gave his team a lead Iowa couldn’t overcome.
Facing an early 4-0 deficit, White tied the contest at four with a pair of powerful flushes early in the game’s first three minutes. The talented 6-8 sophomore went on to score six of Iowa State’s next 13 points en route to the Cyclones 86-76 defeat of the Hawkeyes in Hilton Coliseum.
After Iowa tied the game at 11, Iowa State closed out the first half by outscoring their in-state rival 37-16 — a span lasting 14:41 that featured 8 points from White. The transfer from Minnesota shot a perfect 7-of-7 from the field in the first half, and finished with 17 points on the night.
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said White was as big of a problem as he thought he would be — and then some.
“The thing about [White] is he’s got so many parts to his game,” McCaffery said. “He’s big and strong — he can go in and out. He can make plays off the dribble facing the basket, he can pass out of the post. He can get offensive rebounds [and] put-backs.
“The area you’re not expecting [from him] is jump shooting, and he makes three in the first half… He’s just so powerful, you have to be aware of where he is at all times.”
Iowa opened the second half playing with much greater energy than they did before halftime, resulting in a 14-6 run over the first 5:26 of the second half. Guard Roy Devyn Marble sparked the Black and Gold with aggressive drives to the hoop, scoring six early points after intermission. Marble played a big role as Iowa continued to chip away at the Cyclones lead — the sophomore led all scorers on the night with a career-high 21 points — getting as close as 8 points with 38 seconds to play.
But just as the Hawkeyes seemed to shut down White — he only scored three points in the second half — Iowa State’s Scott Christopherson took over. The senior guard provided a scene McCaffery’s Hawkeyes will surely like to forget, scoring 10 of a season-high 16 points after halftime. Christopherson torched Iowa last year for 30 points on 7-of-12 3-point shooting.
“I’ve been playing like garbage lately,” said Christopherson, who had shot a combined 2-for-11 in Iowa State’s previous two games. “I just wanted to come in and get back on the right track.”
Despite outscoring Iowa State by 11 in the second half, Iowa struggled to put together solid play at both ends of the floor for a whole 40 minutes. The Hawkeyes never found a good offensive rhythm in the first half, scoring on consecutive possessions only six times before halftime. In comparison, the Cyclones scored on five straight offensive trips from the 17:40 mark to the 15:40 mark in the first half alone.
Melsahn Basabe was another one of the few bright spots along with Marble for McCaffery’s squad. The sophomore scored 18 points and added 9 rebounds.
Guard Matt Gatens attributed the team’s first half struggles to allowing White to get comfortable with the ball and a lack of motion on offense.
“They had some good defensive energy to start the game,” he said. “We knew that was going to happen, we talked about that.”
“We need to play the way we played in spurts the second half the whole 40 minutes.”
